=== Top of the Swiki === Attachments ===
Tech Steering
This will consist of mainly programming and system design experts: both young and old. There needs to be a backbone or core structure which will allow all the the plans developed in the nine design task forces to happen. This group will work on such a system and focus on the nitty-gritty technicalities. It will also begin preparation for the actual programming of code by organizing programmers and other coordinating activities. Brief introduction to n1 technology
Tools
- Use the poll system (http://www.nation1.net/cgi-bin/poll/multipoll.cgi) to decide on conclusions.
- Use the chat applet to discuss the Nation1's media component.
- See the list of Tech Steering Participants
Design
Have a look at the technical architecture discussion paper I wrote for non-technical task-force members last July. (Added by nick@nation1.net)
Programming in-kind support
OUR KEY ELEMENT PLAN THUS FAR IS BELOW. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
The key element of Nation1 is a computer based Network that utilises Internet communication standards to link young people in an especially tailored online forum environment.
Citizenship system
The primary function of Nation1 is to network members, who are known as citizens in order achieve their own, perhaps diverse objectives. In order to achieve this, the system must know who they are, and what they do.
A core component of Nation1 will be a database (or series of databases) that contains information on citizens, which they submit when they first register to use Nation1. Information contained will include their location, age, name, contact details, and authentication details (ie. CitizenID and password). This
database will be used to
- Identify citizens when they log in to the system.
- Track citizens to provide a personalised service based on the information they have submitted (for instance, only information related to their geographic location).
- Ensure standardisation and security (ie. that people have a unique ID means no one can vote twice, and that citizens who abuse the system can be removed easily).
Messaging System
Communication is at the core of what Nation1 is about. The messaging element will provide an efficient channel of communication between citizens.
Using open standards Nation1 citizens would be able to participate in one-to-one personal exchanges via e-mail or instant messaging, group discussions via mailing lists, and "massive conversations".
Features would include:
- Multilingual support for messaging. citizens will be able to specify which language they require, and the messaging system will utilise machine translation to automatically deliver the message in that language. To begin, a limited number of languages will be available. A coordination system for human-translation will be built in for the most crucial documents where translation quality is paramount.
- Ability to create group discussions around issues, actions or events. Preferences and permissions for each group would be flexible, in that leadership roles or tasks could be optionally delegated, and the system would take account of member's responsibilities/roles in the allocation of permissions. For instance, a participant charged with the role of "moderation", might have the ability to temporarily restrict the number of messages. (Such preferences would actually be recorded within the Citizenship system, and may impact the other elements).
- The ability for the computer to select who should receive important messages (for all intents and purposes "news") based on their personal preferences, history, location and other criteria. For instance, an article about the Brazillian rainforest written by a local child, might be of particular interest to those in Brazil, young environmental activists, or those who enjoyed previous articles by the young journalist. Other citizens may be more interested in other issues and would not want to be alerted to the news article.
Voting element
Nation1 will be a community run for and by the citizens themselves. The ability for participants to vote is important. When used with regards to the Administration, voting would be subject to the Nation 1 Constitution
The voting system will be a simple mechanism in which a Nation1 user can setup a system that tallies the results of a poll, and
provides the answers back.
- Within Groups of Interest / Region to come up with "issue based" polls to see what the youth opinion on certain issues are, the results of which could be shared with world leaders or whoever is appropriate.
- Within any space within Nation1 where public discussion is possible, eg. Groups of Interest, Action Groups, and the Administration to determine who should be the leaders.
- To be used as a measure of public interest and support for action. That is, as a decision making tool. This could be utilised by groups to decide on a course of action. It could also be used within the actual Nation1 technical structure to ensure spurious resources are not wasted. For instance it may be necessary for people to sign up ten members in advance before a group can be created.
Flexible Databases
citizens of Nation1 should be able to create their own flexible databases of information. That is, if a group discussing
environmental issues has a number of upcoming events, it should be able to input into the system the event dates and
information about each event. This information should be both readily searchable, and also automatically provided to citizens
who might be interested (determined by set criteria as with News above). A number of different database templates could be created
to begin such as upcoming event guide, address book, finance ledger etc. In a perfect world, the computer should be able to automatically intelligently recognise when someone requires information from one of these databases, and suggest pointers on how to retrieve it.
Key element summary
Overall, Nation1 needs a system that is interconnected. We need to create a backbone: the applications & features (see next page) are only powerful when they are connected to each other.
For instance, within Groups of Interest, information on participants will be pulled from the citizenship database (allowing citizens
to personally log in to their own messages), the messaging system itself will provide the latest messages, news and a method to place human structures (leaders) into conversations and actions, thirdly, the voting would allow them to choose how to do this, and make decisions; and the database would provide further handy information, when necessary.
Applications
Using the four key elements as building blocks, we envision numerous applications will be developed over time, as both the need arises and the programming community respond in an open source manner.
To begin features will include:
- Groups based around Interest ("Groups of Interest"), such as the environment, health, peace, education, development and ambitions. Here, general discussion takes place, world-wide, all encompassing plans can form and young people can meet. These groups, would branch out into more specific subgroups (such as Environment: Oceans, or Peace: Child Soldiers) and provide a soapbox for youth opinions. Other complimentary tools would include the ability to organise issue based polls, petitions and manage related websites with minimal technical knowledge.
- Regional groups, based around geographic location. Like the Interest groups above, the Regional Groups would begin broadly and branch out to focus on smaller and smaller areas. When citizens join Nation1, they will be automatically assigned to a region (based on the United Nations eight standard regional groupings). Regional groups will allow participants to discuss issues of regional, national or local importance. Regional groups may also provide a forum at which people in the same area can link up, to meet in real life.
- Low-level Regional groups would be threaded alongside Interest Groups when practical. For instance, the sub-group of Interest "Peace: Child Soliders: Sierra Leone", may indeed be the same as the Regional group "Africa: Sierra Leone: War: Child Soliders".
- Action Groups are the result of discussion in either Regional or Interest Groups. They are goal driven, and are basically a communications medium for a group with a specific task. For instance, members of the Sierra Leone: Child Soldiers group living in Freetown, may form an Action Group to plan and build a school for ex-soldiers, or provide medical support. Action groups will be able to utilise resources, such as adult advisors, to help achieve goals. Such support is listed under support elements.
- Nation1 will be the first Internet site to fully involve all participants in governance, via a popularly elected management, tech team, and adult advisors. Nation1 will implement online "direct democracy" as far as possible in this regard. Governance refers to Administration. For more information, see the Nation 1 Constitution.
- An online news media system, that encourages citizens to report when events occur in their local area, providing a local eye on the issue, and possibly alerting other members to a concern or something they can do to help. Alternatively, news might hightlight a positive achievement, profile an important figure, or describe a cultural event. As previously discussed, news would be automatically forwarded to those whose historical preferences would suggest a predisposition to a particular category of article. Complementing the personalised system would be a publicly accessible (that is, open to all net-citizens) 'newspaper'. Traditional news media, and agencies would be encouraged to republish stories online for wider distribution.
- Cultural Homes will be a special place giving interested young people the chance to learn about other countries and cultures. Additionally, as with all aspects of the Network, young people will be the source behind the content, contributing facts, documents and images about their own life to the relevant "Home" - and offering to answer questions. Cultural Homes will also offer language tutorials, and a language-based pen-pal matching service.